


One in a Billion

by Coffee_Scribbles



Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi, bc Clark and Diana are pretty much fine, bruce nearly dies but he does that in all of my fics, but Bruce is in bad shape so does that make up for it? or make it worse?, i kinda slipped off the prompt a bit?, prompt: Trinity Post battle and are bedridden is lonely
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-13
Updated: 2019-05-13
Packaged: 2020-03-02 14:16:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18812605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Coffee_Scribbles/pseuds/Coffee_Scribbles
Summary: Many of his trainers had asked him:Would you sacrifice yourself for your cause? With nothing, no banners, no one to remember your name?No fame, no armies or cities to sing your praise?Would you die alone, unremarked, and forgotten, in the depths of blood and sorry sod; for naught but your will and your cause?Bruce had answered the same.Life; it was his cause. One or a billion, it is, in the end, the same.If he could save even one life; that would be enough.





	One in a Billion

Life; it was his cause. One or a billion, it is, in the end, the same.

The midst of battle is a din of noise and sound, Superman stood strong amongst the rubble, fighting off Luthor’s most recent attempt at world domination, this time employing armed automatons. Among it, the thunder-like-crack of the gun going off went unnoticed.  
There was a split second where Bruce had to make a decision.

If he could save even one life; that would be enough.

Bruce leapt into the path of the bullet.

It had been a last ditch effort on Luthor’s part, his armies fallen, his sights set, if not conquer the world, than end Superman once and for all. So, of course, the bullet was solid kryptonite.

After that, and the casual agony of a gunshot blaring through his upper abdomen, Bruce's memories became understandably fuzzy. But somewhere along the line, the sound of yells, crunching metal and armed automatons being pulled apart, wire by wire; they had won.

Bruce heard his name called; he tried to answer, but the growing searing agony in his stomach, a wound he clutched tightly such as to slow bleeding, distracted him. Enough for him to barely notice something tangy filling his mouth, and as he tried to roll to spit it out, he recognized it on the pavement. Blood.  
A moment later, strong arms were hoisting him up from the dark ground, he could barely see, the electronic screen of his cowl buzzing and clipping through code.

Bruce couldn’t be sure, but through the fogged glass, he thought he could see tears falling from Clark’s eyes. But that couldn’t be, because he was smiling.  
Clark’s voice was choked, kneeling, cradling Bruce close to him. He was warm, inhumanly so.  
And Bruce was so cold, so deeply cold. 

“It’ll be alright,” Clark whispered, over and over again, like a prayer.  
Bruce was almost convinced.  
He wondered how Clark kept such a sunny disposition; how he interacted with the world with such a genuine zest for life.  
Clark lifted him up through the clouds, and Bruce may have blinked for just a little too long, but the pain through him was getting worse by the second.  
There were few to none with similar abilities to Clark, Bruce could often tell that he feared getting close to people, touching them, for fear they would crumble beneath his fingertips.

Bruce wondered why everyone wanted to be god, when it must truly be the loneliest achievement to hold.

And somehow, Diana, Clark, they both still managed to smile far brighter than Bruce could ever seem to manage; even with all they’d lost. With all their agony behind them, they still stood stronger than he ever could.  
They were simply better than he.

Choking, spitting up blood again across Clark’s chest and beneath his jaw. The pool of blood in his abdomen was growing. His suit was doing all it could to contain the wound, but it couldn't handle it.

Life; it was his cause. One or a billion, it is, in the end, the same.  
If he could save even one life; that would be enough.

Bruce grunted in agony as arms shifted around him, his cowl was pulled off but his vision still blurred.

The last faces Bruce saw were Diana’s, then a moment later Clark’s as the warm muscular form of Clark transferred his limp form into Diana’s safe hands.

 

Then, only darkness.

 

—

 

Bruce had never wanted to be alone; but he did come accustom to it.  
See, from the moment he was born, Bruce had been different. His grades would be abysmal, the seemingly bright boy so bored by such banal subjects… until something managed to hook him; then, like a match dropped into a gas tank, he would burn through books and information at such a clip it left many a tutor scratching their heads. Lost.

As with most young children, curiosity took hold of his little hand so tight and so warm and so inviting, it is with great excitement he runs along side, consequence’s low whisper gone with the wind and muffled by childish laughter, swinging his father’s walking cane like a sword.  
The film they had watched, The Mark of Zorro, a movie he had begged ceaselessly to see, as some unknown flame had sparked his excitement in both silent film and heroic tales, it was the perfect overlap. He had been so excited, but this time, consequence’s low voice would not be silenced.  
With the bang of two gunshots, that childhood ended, there and then.

The flame inside him roared; injustice! It called into the deadly night. Was there not a hero to save them? Would innocent blood spill for no more mean than the cash value of the pearls on his mother’s neck?

But the night only whistled in the cold winds, and they bared no answer.

So the old flame inside Bruce set it’s eyes on a new target, one far stronger in its pull than any other fancy he’d held.

See, Bruce had always had an old, righteous soul. One that shone like a supernova and threatened to burn anything that came too close.  
It was what drove him, what forced his very human body beyond it’s limits and to something beyond, as he grew and trained, it was the same candle-flicker that could so easily turn to a house fire, that nearly killed him so many times.  
He was a spark in the darkness, a constant vicious rebellion against the void that threatened to consume him.  
He had the world in his fist and the universe in his sights even before the gunshots abruptly ended his sweet innocence, and all who ever basked in his presence could attest, on some subconscious level, that it would remain that way long after this… shell, broke.  
As it had broken before, as it would break again. Over and over and over again until what unnatural will that burned inside ran out of fuel; consuming him so wholly that nothing would be left.

He had begun his quest with nothing in his heart but a fire and a need for vengeance against the criminal corrosion that festered and stirred in a city his mother and father had once been so proud to call home.

Many of his trainers had asked him:

Would you sacrifice yourself for your cause? With nothing, no banners, no one to remember your name?  
No fame, no armies or cities to sing your praise?  
Would you die alone, unremarked, and forgotten, in the depths of blood and sorry sod; for naught but your will and your cause?

Bruce had answered the same.

Life; it was his cause. One or a billion, it is, in the end, the same.  
If he could save even one life; that would be enough.

The toll of bells, a funeral, sing through the corners of his mind, an echo of a day that would be burned into his brain for eternity. He longed to stand from the medical cot his broken body lay in, to visit their graves, set a stone to pay tribune to his reason; to his parents.

He had failed then. Bruce had long ago sworn they would be the only ones.  
He was so wrong.

Jason, Damian, Cassandra, countless civilians, so many had died under his eye.

He had gotten far too good at goodbyes; given and received too many.

 

Bruce had never wanted to be alone; but he did come accustom to it. Death after death, fault after fault.  
Maybe it was best this way.

 

“Do try to rest, sir,” Alfred offered ever so gently, the weary crinkle to his lips ever so slightly off; like an artist had drawn and re-drawn his sad, sorry smile so many times, erasing and crumpling and flattening out the paper so many more, that it could no longer feel true.

“Unlike your compatriots, you are not immortal; no matter how you convince yourself otherwise.”  
The door to the watchtower medical bay opened.

Bruce didn’t respond, he didn’t correct Alfred either; didn’t tell him how Bruce had never for a moment thought himself anything other than a man.  
He was sure Alfred knew that, but Alfred had always had talent in keeping Bruce’s mind in check; even when he himself could not.

There was a pause, as Alfred stood by the door, back to Bruce and the open medical bay, a weary hand on its frame, as if almost unwilling to leave his charge.

“Alfred,” Bruce spoke, his voice was dry, but filled with his usual strength. “I’ll be home as soon as I can. Don’t worry.”

Alfred did not look back, but his hand did grip the frame tighter.

“One day, Master Bruce, you may not come home at all,” his voice was choked, yet somehow composed; Bruce remembered it sounded very similar as they sat Shiva for his parents.

It made his stomach drop to hear that mournful tone applied to him.

“That is the day I worry for.”

The hush of air as the automated sliding door closed was all that Alfred allowed to follow. That and the slow tap of polished dress shoes down the station’s long hall.

 

The silence that settled was deafening.  
The sound of the hollow, lifeless space-station rung in his ears, empty and cold. Time passes behind the curtain of drugs and slow, melodic beeps and whirs of the medical equipment that surrounded him, dulling it all to a hum that is almost as quiet as his settled breathing.  
And maybe it was just how loud the silence was, or maybe it was all the pain from his wounds finally breaking the dam, but he could swear, the tightness in his chest felt all too real.  
Like a hand wrapped around his heart, and in that aching silence, like the crack of an egg-shell under too much force, he could begin to hear it break.

Bruce had never wanted to be alone; he never liked it, but he did come accustom to it.  
The silence allowed even his slower, weaker, very drugged mind to whirl with thoughts, crisp and vivid memories, one that replayed most often was how he’d gotten there, hooked up to more alien tech than he could name in a breath, on enough drugs to tranquilize a horse.

 

The door slid open again. Had Alfred returned?

Bruce closed his eyes, feigning sleep.

“You’re awake?” Clark’s voice was gentle, if a tad accusatory. 

Bruce just nodded, sighing, and opening his eyes.

At the entrance of the room stood Diana and Clark, Clark holding a large vase with a eucalyptus and white rose bouquet.

“Wedding flowers?” Bruce asked lowly, his voice still rough around the edges; much like he was.

“They were on sale,” Clark defended. He scratched at the nape of his neck; moving toward the bed.  
“These… were for your room.”  
He set them on the side table.

“It matches the decor,” Diana said with what seemed to be a half-hearted attempt at a smile. Still leaning in the doorframe.  
Clark took the seat guest in the corner of the room.  
Bruce just grunted.

There was a rather long pause. Looking between each-other, back at Bruce. surprisingly, Clark was the one who broke the silence.

“Bruce,” Clark addressed. His commanding tone was superman, but his posture was all Clark.  
“Why did you do it, Bruce. I could have dodged.”

Bruce sighed.  
“It was opportune at the time.” Bruce said calmly, too drugged to notice Clark’s hands crunching on the arm-rests metal chair.  
“Besides, you were distracted, and if it hit, you would have died-”

“You did die.” Clark barked, the chair clacking to the ground, “for four minutes you were on the table with no god damn pulse. I-”

“I’m here now, aren’t i?” Bruce said, almost proud. “I lived, so, there’s nothing to worry about.”

Diana finally entered the room, arms folded across her chest, gauntlets glinting in the cold light.  
“But how many more times will you have such luck?” Diana broke. “You cannot count on this, on winning every battle.”

“No I cant,” Bruce said. Why couldn’t they just accept this, and move on? What was done was done, and he would not stop doing his duty to make anyone feel better.  
“But I have too.”

“No Bruce, you don’t have too.” Clark’s hands balled into fists, “you have no obligation-“

“And you do?” Bruce snapped.  
Obligation. What Clark meant was he had no powers.  
“What obligation do you have? What more of a right do you have to save lives than anyone else?”  
“I-“ 

“Your powers are all that separates you from the average man. That’s it. And I may have the unfortunate handicap of being human,” Clark winced at Bruce’s harsh words.  
“I have my mind, I have my strength, I have my weapons, and more than enough skill to have saved your ass a couple hundred times now.”

“Bruce,” Clark said, his tone lower, hands raised as if to show he meant no harm.  
“That’s not what I-“

“It is what you meant Clark, and I’m sick of this elitist attitude your powers give y-“

“Both of you calm down.” Diana spoke, regal and commanding, purveying clearly the royal blood in her veins. Though clearly she was fighting off her own temper.  
“You’re saying things you don’t mean just to hurt each other, and it isn’t productive.”

Bruce squared his jaw, but looked down.  
She was right; he hadn’t meant half of what he said. And Clark, without some serious prompting, would never do, or even think, any of those things.

“Bruce…” Clark swallowed, I don’t mean that you aren’t worthy to be on this team, you have more than proved yourself, even though there was no proof needed.”

Bruce nodded.

“What I mean is… Well, I’m… I’m concerned for you, Bruce.”  
(I care, please let me in.)

Bruce looked into Clark’s empty eyes, and said;

"You shouldn’t be.”  
(I’m doing you a favor.)

 

See, Bruce had always had an old, righteous soul. One that shone like a supernova and threatened to burn anything that came too close.  
And Clark, no matter how impenetrable his flesh was, no matter how strong he was; mentally, he was just a man.

The fire in Bruce would leave nothing behind when it destroyed Clark from the inside out; and Bruce could not allow that.

“Why?” Diana demanded.  
“Give me one good reason why we shouldn’t care.”

Bruce stared at her for a second.

“We’ve been working together for six years now Bruce! And somehow, we’ve learned to care- hell, we’ve learned to love each-other!” Diana grabbed Clark’s hand, as if to show him proof, evidence he could not deny.  
Something swelled in his stomach, leaving a bitter taste at his lips.  
He looked away, but Diana was not done.

Diana marched up to the side of his bed, pulling along Clark, and shaking a finger directly in his face.  
“Now I don’t give a rats ass about this fucking depressive, truth-less, bullshit, complex you’ve put up to try to make us not care about you? But when it gets to this point- I, great Hera, Bruce! You died. And that’s still not enough for Clark to be allowed to bring you some bloody flowers?”

Bruce took a breath.  
“I…”

 

“One day, Master Bruce, you may not come home at all,” Alfred spoke slowly.  
“That is the day I worry for.”

 

“I… I don’t want to hurt you.”  
Bruce’s mouth was dry, why had he spoken?

He wondered what they were thinking; where they disgusted with his blatant display of weakness? Taken aback by his ability to even show emotion? Bruce couldn’t tell.

But as Alfred had always said; honesty is one way gate to hell, but through that fire is freedom.

“Bruce,” Clark finally spoke, approaching his bedside as one may a frightened, wounded animal.

“It’s hard to be alone…” Bruce whispered; almost hoping he wouldn’t be heard. The dam was cracking in his heart, the one that held back everything he never wanted to feel.

“You don’t have to be alone,” Diana assured, taking his hand.

Clark leaned over, pressing a kiss to his forehead.  
“Not anymore.”

Bruce had never wanted to be alone; and maybe, just maybe, he didn’t have to be.

 

Bruce smiled slightly.  
“Sorry for being such an asshole… I guess dying gives a person a bit of pent up anger?”

Before Clark could answer, Bruce’s communicator chirped. It was a message.

 

"Now you get it.  
-Jason".


End file.
